I am an adamant and exclusive Coca-Cola drinker. Pepsi is not the same. Pepsi lacks the robust, saline punch that follows a sip of Coke. Pepsi is the sad, saccharine cousin of Coke; the pale shadow that desperately grasps at authenticity, failing forever. The poor man’s cola, the penultimate cola; cola mimesis. But does Pepsi even want to replicate Coke’s specific nuanced flavor profile? Or does it acknowledge the impossibility of justly recreating that palate experience, and instead settle for a bizarre half-approximation that only gently alludes to the original recipe?